Wheaton, Illinois: Site of World's First Radio Telescope

According to a plaque at the site of the World's First Radio Telescope, it was home-built by Grote Reber in the side yard of his house in 1937, "to the wonderment of many in town."

In 1933, Karl Jansky of Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL), while gathering data on terrestrial radio waves, discovered that the center of our galaxy was spewing radio noise. He wanted to build a bigger, better telescope, but BTL management nixed the idea. Grote Reber of Wheaton heard about Jansky's discovery, and in his spare time, on his own dime, built the world's first radio telescope in his back yard. He had to gather data late at night, because during the day car spark plugs polluted the radio spectrum. Some would call him obsessive; I call him "highly determined." Reber's pioneering telescope was later moved to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. Today, the site of his telescope is an AT&T parking lot with a historical marker. Given that BTL used to be part of AT&T, this could be considered either cosmic justice or just plain ironic.

Just north of downtown Wheaton is a memorial to the World's first "substantial" radio telescope. The device, built in 1937, was a 31 foot bowl-shaped telescope constructed by amateur radio operator and pioneer radio astronomer, Grote Reber, in his backyard. The plaque was installed in late 2002.